I got a bit of grief and arseholes from friends about this car, nothing meaningful of course, just a friendly ribbing such as "that ride is sooooo phat" and "when are you getting neons, a big wing and 20 stickers?! doff doff sick-az man real mean bro" lol. I'm not against any car brand and like any vehicle when it's done tastefully. Mopars are, and always will be, #1, period. Nothing wrong with other brands especially when they're cheap, reliable and easy enough to find, it's no loss come time to sell unlike my E-Bodies or Batram which I plan to keep until I've kicked the can.

When I was looking for this car it was always going to be as cheap as possible and for surfing, it was a dedicated surf vehicle as it's perfect for that kind of lifestyle. I've owned one prior to this in the past and had no trouble with it at all. I wanted a good little cruiser. Gas is better in this car than anything else I owned but that was never a real concern. The car is an E-Tune model which uses 1 litre less fuel per 100km than the normal spec GTB cars plus it was tuned for slightly better performance. Anyhow, as usual, cars and me get carried away and I decided to throw in a sound system........

My first car had 2 x 12" Phoenix Gold 12" Xmax subs which pounded hard, great sound and low mean bass. They were rated at 500rms watts but anyone who knows PG knows they underrate their subs badly and they were good for at least 800rms+. I have a variety of cars but I didn't have anything with a worthy booming sound system so set out on changing this. As usual, I did my homework and searched for Phoenix Gold subs only. In my opinion the best subwoofer on the market. I found my products and had a hard time getting them at the one shop, lots of place would not ship Internationally and the subs were not out in New Zealand yet.

The sound system consisted of the following: 3 x Phoenix Gold RSDC-124 12" subwoofers rated @ 600rms and peak watts at 1,200. Again, well underrated. I have seen and heard that they can take 1,200rms+ no problems. I decided to run 1 amp per sub to give them what they need so I purchased the following: 3 x Phoenix Gold RSD1200.1 amplifiers that are rated at 1,200rms watts (peak 2000watts). I removed the spare wheel in the rear floor area and had them place the 3 main amps in there. Up front are Phoenix Gold TI6Comp Elite 300rms watt component speakers (6.5" + tweeters) - REAL LOUD.

These ran off a Phoenix Gold V1502 500rms amplifier that was also installed in the spare tyre area. The rear was completely sound deadened along with the front doors and the car had time spent on de-rattling it. The car basically has zero rattles/vibrations, for a system of this power, it's almost unheard of! I replaced my spare tyre with a aerosol can of "Fix-A-Flat" Tire inflator as found on most modern cars. Easy to use, cheap and worth it to have the sound system.

All this was professionally installed. The Subaru was stock apart from 18" DTM Kaliber Hyper Racing (painted satin black) (48 offset-5/100), custom exhaust system for a very mild and quiet Subaru rumble, BOV was already installed so I "detuned" it for less venting noise. It was a Tiptronic (Sports-Shift) car which works a treat and is what I wanted for cruising, surfing and a sound system vehicle. I didn't know when I purchased the Subaru but that basically covered all styles of factory transmissions - Cool! LOL. At the time I owned a; 3-Speed auto, 4-Speed auto, Tiptronic, 5-Speed manual and 6-Speed manual lol.

The car had 73,000kms when I purchased it. I found it on Trade-Me after around 15 days of searching every hour. It popped up and was on there less than 30 minutes, I called the owner, did a VIR, then pressed the buy now - $10,500. I think it was a great deal. I also had a Pioneer AVH-P5950 in-dash DVD/TV installed for easy touch screen control of the sound system. It runs an iPod, has a TV tuner, DVD, Radio, CD, and all the music controls needed, it rocks!! Apart from that it was all stock and if I do say so myself, subtle and tastefully done. Far from the typical "rice" vehicle with every body kit & accessory known to man on it. Most importantly, I liked it.

As you'll see, like my other vehicles, expect Lucy, it's all blacked out and stealth. I have a thing for no bling and love my vehicles stealth, almost Batmobile like, beats chrome if you ask me! But, to each their own. The car was sold with little kms done in my ownership (3,000kms), just didn't get used, hmmm, MoPars or the Subaru? Hence the reason it was sold, plus I had to make room in the driveway and I needed some money. I sold it with the subs and amps (at a loss - doh!) and kept the indash TV/DVD screen and iPod adapter for my Jeep's set up. Cool car though and it was fun while it lasted but I found out then and there that big sounds grow old - fast and destroy your car lol. I have and never will, put a big sound system in a car I care heaps about, it just destroys the panel work and gaps with sound waves, etc. This was to be my final Japanese car.